A new poll shows Britain undecided on the EU

5 June. — Survation, a British polling company, published the findings of the opinion research on the EU referendum. It shows that the British public is still largely undecided about how they will vote.

The findings from Survation have been circulated just days after the highly publicised results from Pew Research Center, an American sociological company, made headlines across Europe with its surprisingly contrasting attitudes to various aspects, including to national and European economy, euroscepticism and EU referendum. We voiced our concern here that the findings of the Pew Research’s poll do not match real political trends.

For example, Pew Research stated that the number of people who would vote “in” for Britain had risen to 55%. This is in line with the trends uncovered by YouGov, a UK polling agency, which has also shown growing support for the EU.

However, the upward trend in public attitude towards the EU did not seemingly come along with voters’ view. While the polling companies showed support for British withdrawal from the EU falling, euroscepticism made huge electoral gains in terms of votes and seats in local councils for UKIP and caused splits in the governing Conservative Party. In the 2015 UK general election, support for UKIP rose from 920,000 to 3.9 million people and the party added another 176 seats in local councils across the UK.

The new poll from Survation highlights a more cautious and truthful picture of what is happening in Britain when it comes to the EU referendum. The poll, commissioned by the left-wing think tank British Future, finds that 71.4% of the respondents are not confident about their voting intentions. Specifically, there are 12.8% of those who clearly ‘don’t know’, with 28% ‘leaning out’ and 30.6% ‘leaning in’.

The poll also shows how much the public trusts various politicians on the issue. Prime Minister David Cameron enjoys the highest level of trust among fellow politicians. His personal rating stands at 49% and is followed by Boris Johnson’s 45%. On the contrary, former Prime Minister Tony Blair is the least trusted person. His anti-rating is at 59%. UKIP leader Nigel Farage is also not trusted on Europe (54%).

The number of those who would definitely prefer Britain pulling out of the EU stands at just 12.3% and it is slightly below the proportion of those who is confident it should stay – 16.2%.

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